Black as Night
by Alfred's Elevator
Summary: Rose Tyler: friend, family, and everything to the Doctor. Without a proper goodbye and left alone, the Doctor discovers a darkness resurfacing within himself that Rose had helped banish long ago. Spoilers from the episode Doomsday. Inspired by "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones.


This is part one of two, i hope its ok. I was listenin to the Rooking Stones song "Paint it Black" and insparation hit me harder than a truck. I'm so sorry for isnt inconsistency, inaccuracy, or errors, as in super tired and don't feel like checking this over again.

i dont own BBC's Doctor Who or the rolling stones' "paint it black"

In a daze the Doctor returned to his ship, eyes stinging and hearts heavy. He's furious with himself, furious with the daleks, the cyber men, and whatever damned force insists on tearing him apart again and again, torturing his every breath with guilt and confusion. He rested his elbows on the control panel of the TARDIS and burrowed his face into his hands, refusing to cry. Rose wouldn't cry, she was strong. So much stronger than him.  
A single sob shook through his body, but he refused to allow any more. He already felt weak, what would he think of himself if he collapsed into tears on the floor? Was it possible to think any less of himself?  
He took several deep breaths and then looked at the controls. He tried to think of anywhere to go, but his mind refused to bring up anywhere he could go that he and Rose hadn't been to, or that he planned to take her.  
'Take me somewhere, anywhere, please.' He asked of his ship, sending the request to her telepathically, as he didn't feel like using his voice.  
Slowly, the engine started to make noise and the thing in the glass tube began to move up and down.

The TARDIS tried to help take his mind off of his lost companion for several day, but his thoughts were moored by Rose. The last thing he said to her was him simply calling her name. It weighed on him, not only because of losing a companion, but because it was /Rose/. She was more than a friend, she was his saviour. She alone had brought him out of the depression he had suffered after the time war, when he wondered every moment if he even had the right to live. She had befriended him, traveled with him, and he gained back a small sense of self-worth, but a stronger sense of duty to protect people, protect Rose. She had given him purpose and he owed her everything, but now he could never thank her. It stung. He couldn't do anything for her, couldn't say goodbye. She was as good as dead to him, no matter how much he wished it otherwise, because they were a dimension apart an he couldn't get through the barrier. 'might as well have a funeral.' He thought dully to himself, alone in a plain on Earth, searching halfheartedly for a strange comet that had reportedly landed in the area. The TARDIS scan had assured him that it wasn't dangerous to nearby humans, but anything to occupy himself would do.  
"Wait." A funeral, her funeral. It wasn't anywhere near what he owed her, but it might bring a sense of closure to himself and maybe even her if she could sense it through dimensions... London would be holding a mass funeral most likely, as so many people had been vaporised by the daleks beams and many others died along with their friends and family, and thus had no one else to mourn them but the general public. A memorial might even be erected and dedicated to those who perished in the battle that the Doctor couldn't prevent.  
He walked back through the wheat stalks to the waiting Police Box, stepping inside to type in coordinates.

The TARDIS doors open to a sunny meadow, still on earth, with trees bordering a huge clearing full of long grass and wild flowers. He sighs and inhaled the beautiful scent of a hundred flowers combining into one smell in perfect balance. There were white, yellow, pink, blue, and purple flowers splattered throughout the meadow and in the forest, where some wild rose bushes were in full bloom.  
He had stumbled upon this field by accident long ago. After a fight with his granddaughter he had threatened to leave her in the Swiss alps. She laughed at the threat and In his anger he had punched in a number wrong and ended up in an austrian field during summer, not the mountain peak at winter.  
He thought of the coincidence of Susan's true, gallifreyan name and his current situation.  
Her name had meant Rose.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind and focused on finding the most beautiful flowers possible from the field, not even considering picking one less than absolutely stunning. He gathered flowers one by one until the colors blended harmoniously together in a fair-sized and aesthetically pleasing bundle, then approached the rose bushes, gathering a few of the red and pink blossoms by severing their stems with the sonic. A soft wind started blowing and the sun had begun sinking in the sky before he deemed the bouquet good enough and walked back to the TARDIS.

Upon landing, the Doctor pulled the flowers and the simple vase into his hands before exiting into the London backstreet. There was a collapsed building across the street with people working on clearing the rubble. It was a few weeks after the destructive wave of aliens, and few people were out in the streets. Some whispered and hurried along, as if afraid of the open streets, and others were shuffling around like undead corpses, staring at collapsed buildings with unseeing eyes, shocked from loss and trauma, and some admirable people still searching for loved ones, whispering their names in a hoarse voice weak from calling out or crying for so long.  
The doctor inhaled deeply. He rarely saw this, the aftermath of disasters. He usually tried as best he could to fix the problem and then flew away before the shock died out and the mourning began. Not this time though. He made himself stay in London and walk through the desolate streets. He only paused to watch a group of three teenagers walking across the street, dressed in bright colors and chatting happily.  
A wave of disgust and anger passed through the Doctor faster than lightning, and wound itself into his blood, which felt as if it were boiling hot. /Hundreds/ of people dead and these teens were strutting around London as if the worst thing that had happened in the last month was breaking a nail! One even had the nerve to laugh at something one of the construction people did while clearing a pile of broken bricks by hand!  
The Doctor's grip on the vase of flowers tightened. How could some humans be so ignorant and insensitive!? He could feel the sad and mournful atmosphere in London weighing him down almost enough to feel as if it were a physical force. Rose would have sensed it as well. She was sensitive, empathetic, caring, smart, and kind, which made it hard for the enraged doctor to believe these disrespectful geese were of the same species.  
He felt an urge to yell at the girls, to point out the blatant wrongness of their stature and attitude amoungst buildings reduced to shambles and families just as broken. To unleash some of the tension and anger built up inside his muscles like an overstuffed ragdoll onto the minors, but a flash of red in the corner of his eye stopped him. He looked down at the rose in his hands and then looked away from the girls, controlling his breathing and refusing the temptation to turn his gaze on them again until he was sure they were out of eyeshot and his surge of malice dissipated.

He continued through the streets until he came upon one with many spectators dressed in black lining the pavement. Many were crying, some were hugging their children, some stood silent and still with the same expression on every one of the other stiff sentinels, one of a person hiding grief behind a grim mask.  
He fit right in with his black suit, even his converse left in the TARDIS for some plain black dress shoes and his hair slicked down.  
A solemn parade of cars that looked like they could have been fashioned from dark obsidian was proceeding towards the South, to the place dedicated to victims of the Dalek and cyberman invasion.  
The crowd started moving together in a steady stream after the cars, walking in the streets and bowing their heads in silence. Many had tributes to leave at the memorial, as the Doctor did. A woman held a stuffed bear with a pink ribbon around its neck, a child clutched a handmade card, an old man held a bouquet of irises. It was a spectical, thousands of people moving through the streets with such a range of objects, but no one outside the group of mourners could bear to stop and watch. Mothers of families not scared by recent death gently steered their children away when asked what the people were doing while lone people who never had anyone to mourn shuffled awkwardly past, not daring to meet eyes with someone whose pain they could never understand.

A/N: yay! Part one of this incredibly depressing fic is up. Please review, it means a lot when you do, even if its just a word or short paragraph. I love constructive criticism and swell and encourage you to share it if you have any.

feel free to PM me or put questions or comments in a review, thank you!

P.S. Pandora radio is evil. I started writing this and put on a classical music station I've made. After awhile a really pretty and sad song came on and I thought it fit the story I was writing quite well. When I checked the song I noticed the album name. Karen Marie Garret's "_It's About the Rose_." The song was called "The Piano Called" if anyone is interested.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the next song's album cover was covered in Roses -_-


End file.
